


From House to House, From World To World

by therubyincomparable



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon), Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Multi, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26565541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therubyincomparable/pseuds/therubyincomparable
Summary: What if the Boiling Isles was just one of many worlds that certain misfit kids could find doorways to if their hearts yearned for them?  What if some kids who got sent back never stopped looking for the doorways to the places they called home?  A crossover between The Owl House and the Wayward Children series, with original characters.
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m doing this as a favor to her mother. She’s a nurse that works with me and I explained to her that this condition is common in young kids, that I suffered from it myself and this school helped me adjust to the real world. I wasn’t really lying, was I?”

Eleanor smiled. “You did become a doctor, after all.”

Dr. Rao sniffed. “Family pressure.”

“Anyway, about Luz. Her world is called the Boiling Isles. Wicked, definitely. She mentioned it was part of a demon realm. The kind of place where you have to stay inside during a storm or the rain will burn your skin off. Islands made from the body of a dead Titan whose corpse sticks out of the sea.They have cute little fairies with big teeth that will try to eat you. Also most likely high Nonsense. She mentioned something about giraffes and little puppy demons and a hooting doorknocker, I couldn’t quite understand what she was talking about. She gets a little excitable sometimes. Also, don’t be surprised if she starts scribbling random sigils everywhere. Apparently she was in training to be a witch and even enrolled in a magic school, but her spells don’t work on Earth, unfortunately.”

“I see. The paths to worlds that teach children to be witches and wizards have become more common over the past few decades.”

“You’ll probably want to supervise her carefully. She’s trying to get back, and she’s persistent. She gets very hyper when she’s excited about something and it took a while to make any sense out of what she was saying, but I think she was on a quest of some sort. Something about the senior witch who mentored her being kidnapped by a dark emperor and put under a transformation curse. Apparently this Eda lady was like a second mother to her. And she had friends at magic school that she misses, and one girl who I think she might have been dating? They went to magic school prom together, and from what she describes this Amity girl is clearly crushing on her hard, but I don’t know how aware Luz is. She has every reason to try to go back. She had no friends at school here on Earth, and before she found her door she was the kind of kid who escaped into fantasy novels and dreamed about having real magic powers, and got into trouble because of her overactive imagination. She didn’t want to come back, and was somehow kicked out of her world by this evil emperor and some evil witch or sorceress working for him.The only real tie she has to Earth is her mother. I convinced her to at least try adjusting to life here to make her mother stop crying, and to talk to other kids who understand what she’s been through. I think she’s still secretly trying to find a door back, though.”

“Understood. Thank you for all of your help, Vina, you’ve been wonderful. How are you holding up, these days?”

Dr. Rao sighed and smiled, wistfully “I’m coping. I think of myself as a grownup, now, with lots of things to occupy my attention, and I’m thinking of maybe writing a novel in my spare time that’s loosely based on my memories of the Great Star Ocean. Hopefully a little creative writing will help me channel those emotions. You know, I went out of my way to help Luz because she reminds me a little of myself at that age. I mean, I wasn’t nearly as hyper or chatty, but the love of fantasy, the daydreaming, the inability to fit in at school, parents who didn’t understand me and kept trying to force me to be normal-it all hit a little too close to home.“

“Well, it’s wonderful, what you’re doing now. And Luz is going to be around other children who understand her completely.”

Luz was still poking and prodding at the furniture, searching for hidden portals, scribbling symbols on post-its and pressing her phone to them to try to charge them before slapping them down on tables and walls and chairs. Dr. Rao had to admire the girl’s tenacity. At that age, she’d just been sad, quiet, and resigned to the loss of the only place that made her feel like she was supposed to exist, and wasn’t just a mistake produced from parents who had children because that was what they ought to do. The girl was a fighter, no question. And maybe, just maybe, she’d win her fight, Dr. Rao secretly hoped. Maybe she would be one of the lucky ones, the ones who found their way back.

“What, is she trying to find her door? Must be really new. What’s with the Post-Its? She come from a world of living paper or something?” asked an older student who had wandered in.

“No, the papers have spell-symbols written on them. She was an apprentice witch, but her world’s magic doesn’t work on Earth at all.”

“A witch? Cool. Too bad her spells aren’t working. Most kids have at least a little magic left when they first come here, even though it fades.”

“Unfortunately, none of the powers she had in her own world seem to work here. Miss Eleanor can explain more, but can you and the other kids watch out for her? She hasn’t given up on trying to get back, and she left her friends behind in the clutches of an evil emperor.”

“Ooh, a desperate one, huh? Yeah, we’ll keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t try to tear the school down.”

Another student had been watching for a while, and glanced at Dr. Rao. “Were you a student here?”

“Long time ago,” she smiled. 

“I figured. You knew too much, and you seemed to get what it’s like for kids like us. Most grownups don’t. Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” Dr. Rao prepared herself. She thought she knew what the girl was about to ask, and it was difficult. Not as painful as it would have been years ago, but still, the ache never quite left.

“Does it ever get better? I mean, I don’t expect it to ever be normal, not ever again, but does it ever not suck so much?”

“It does. You never forget where you really belong, but over time you find other things to keep yourself occupied. It never goes away, and it never really becomes great, but you cope with it. And one day, you get to a place where you can feel okay again. Not great, but okay.”

An older boy, a very handsome one, was approaching now. “I think I’ve seen your photo among the graduates. You seem to be coping well. Nice to know that some of us can survive out there on our own. I’m Kade. From a Fairyland.”

“Dr. Rao, but you can call me Vina. Cosmic Ocean. Or Great Star Ocean, that would be the closest English translation, I think.”

The pretty boy raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t heard of that one.”

“Oh, it was lovely. Shed your human form, become a sort of ethereal dragon-like creature, and spend eternity swimming between the stars, exploring different planets, singing to sculpt reality to your will and bend the fabric of spacetime. Loads of fun. Unless you get sucked into a wormhole that takes you back to earth and drops you back in a human body."

“I’ll bet. And is this your daughter?”

“No, I’m a friend of the family. Her mother was crying at work after she returned, and I offered to help because it was pretty obvious what happened. At least if you’ve been through it already. Long story short, her name is Luz Noceda, she went to a world full of demons and witches, she was going to magic school and trying to rescue her friends and loved ones from a dark emperor who sent her back here. She called the place the Boiling Isles and it sounds pretty Wicked and Nonsensical. She hasn’t stopped trying to get her spells to work and open a portal back. Watch out for her, will you? She’s not the type to give up easily.”

“Will do.”

Dr. Rao looked back once at Luz before she shut the door and headed to her car. At least she knew that Luz was in the best care possible, surrounded by the few people on Earth who could truly understand her. 

She sighed, rolled her windows down to let in the cooling air, and put on a playlist of wordless vocals from various artists around the world, a medley that called up vague, pleasant reminders of what she knew she shouldn’t dwell on (not quite, it was never exactly right, no human voice or instrument could ever truly duplicate the music of the spheres) and let the sounds wash over her weak human ears as she drove back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An OC new student at Miss Eleanor's School is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may continue depending on feedback and other new OCs and other worlds may be introduced.

Vikram thought that maybe he could cope with it, if the campus looked like this. There were gardens, and trees, and ponds, and maybe there were statues, too. He shifted his backpack across his shoulders and pulled on his suitcase (plastic, it took so long to get used to the touch of plastic, of hard, shiny, artificial things instead of smooth stone or fragrant wood), took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

“Welcome. You must be Vikram. I spoke to your father on the phone.”

“Miss Eleanor?”

“Please. Just Eleanor will do for now. Come. I’d like to get to know you, so I have an idea of where to put you. I understand that you know Dr. Rao? Vina Rao?”

“Yes. Her parents know my parents. She told me about this place, what to expect.” That had been a shocker. When she’d gently patted his arm and told him, “I believe you.” That there were other kids who’d gone to other worlds, misfit kids who found where they belonged, and then by one misfortune or another they’d been pulled back here. That Vina herself had been one of those kids, like him. And Vina had told him to expect to have to stay here, that he’d probably be given a speech about learning to adjust and move on, about how he was more likely to be hit by lightning twice than find his way back to the Garden. 

“So, tell me, where did you go?” 

“My world? It was full of plants, and statues. Like a big garden, but with signs that someone had been there, making art. Sculptures of wood and stone and ivory. Some old stone ruins too, covered in plants. And there were pools of water, and some of them showed other worlds, other places. Very peaceful.“ 

There had been various beings there, too. Creatures that looked like they had stepped out of old folktales about faeries and nature spirits, or perhaps they had once been sculptures like the ones still remaining in the Garden, sculptures that had been brought to life. Some of them had been like living topiaries, or elaborate masses of vines and flowers twisted together to produce a form that was only partially human. Nearly all of them were beautiful, and one in particular- but no, don’t think about him. It’ll only hurt more. Don’t think about those green eyes, the scent of wood, moss and wildflowers, the cool lips tasting of mint…no. Not anymore. 

There had been two fictional works he’d been drawn to when he’d come back. One was Pan’s Labyrinth, a movie he’d watched over and over. There was only a vague similarity in the atmosphere of the fairy realm in that movie, but even the faintest reminder of his true home had been addictive. There was a book he had with him in his backpack now, by an author named Frederic Durbin, its pages well-worn by now. A Green and Ancient Light. The imagery in that book was closer, much closer to the truth than that Pan’s Labyrinth movie had been but still not quite the same. He’d googled the _sacro bosco_ in Italy that had inspired the author of that book, and the photos of the greenery and statues soothed his eyes briefly, but it still wasn’t quite right. Nothing on Earth was quite right. Nothing could match the eternal peace and safety, the impossible softly-lit beauty of his Garden.

“Sounds like a high Virtue world, I think. We’ll map out the rest of it later on.”

“There’s one thing you might want to know.”

She looked at him kindly. “Yes, go ahead, Vikram. You can tell me anything.”

“I..I chose to come back. I didn’t want to, but I thought I had to. One of the pools, it showed me Earth. It showed my family. My Dad had broken down crying after I left, and my sister and cousins and uncles and aunts were crying too, and my mom was drinking all the time, and even my little nieces were asking where I was and if I would ever come back. I couldn’t…I didn’t want to come back to Earth. I knew I wouldn’t be happy if I came back, but I couldn’t stand to see them that way. I couldn’t stand knowing that they were so miserable that I was gone, even if I didn’t always like being around my family even before I found the door to the Garden, so I dove into the pool and let it spit me out back here.”

Eleanor patted his shoulder, her eyes kind and shining. 

“I still don’t know if I made the right choice. They were relieved to have me back at first, but now they have no idea what to do with me, and I don’t know if it was worth it, I really really don’t…”

“You made a hard choice. One only a few of us get to make. And only you can decide for yourself if you made the right one.”

Later on, she’d introduced him to some of the other kids. One older student in particular, a boy almost as beautiful as…no, he was extremely good-looking, but human. Another kid who’d been kicked out of his home world. 

“So, tell us about yourself, Vikram. Where are you from?”

“Uh, my parents are from India, but I was born and raised in the U.S., I’m from this little town in Michigan that…” the same old shpiel he trotted out whenever someone asked “Where are you from?” as if anyone who wasn’t white or had a different-sounding name couldn’t possibly have been born and raised here, just like any other American kid.

The beautiful boy rolled his eyes. “Not that. Your real home. Your world.”

“Uh, I don’t know how to classify it, I’m still new to all the terminology. I don’t think it was Wicked, and it didn’t seem like Nonsense to me. It was an eternal Garden, full of greenery and statues and marble pillars and what looked like old ruins, and pools that gave visions of other worlds, and there was fruit and fresh water, but you didn’t need to eat very often, it was almost like the air of the place fed you and kept you healthy, and there were things like nature spirits or forest spirits wandering around. It was never too hot or too cold. Sometimes there was mist, but no rain, and the sun was never too bright, and it never got too dark at night, with the stars and the moonlight. Eternally calm. Eternally peaceful.”

“Sounds eternally boring,” muttered one girl. Another girl elbowed her. “Don’t judge. If that world suited you then you would have been called to it. None of us really get each other’s worlds, but that doesn’t matter. As long as it was right for us. As long as we could call it home.”

One thing he hadn’t mentioned to anyone was that over time, he had started to become one with the Garden, or so he thought. He could feel it telling him things in wordless communion, sending him feelings and images, letting him know that he would always be safe, always be welcome. Always home. And that his flesh had started to turn green and one day he had noticed small flowers sprouting from the backs of his hands, and felt nothing but a muted delight that he was fitting in with his true home (and his lover, but no, forget about him, you’ll never see him again anyway…will you?). The flowers had wilted and fallen off soon after he came back, and he kept them pressed in a notebook somewhere in his luggage. His skin had a faint hint of green when the light hit the backs of his hands just right, but it was barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. His family had never noticed. He’d had the distinct feeling that if he had stayed, he would have changed to look more like the strange and beautiful creatures who populated the Garden, until there was no trace of humanity left behind. And to tell the truth, he wouldn’t have missed it. Not if it meant he could stay in the Garden forever (and be with him forever, the two of them roaming the woods and the ruins, drinking in the sunlight and mist, eternally healthy and free, eternally one with nature.)

Luz was only a little younger than him, but she acted like an elementary-school kid a lot of the time. Always hyper, always getting excited about something, and never giving up on trying to get back to her world, constantly pestering the older students about the doors and about the magic used in different worlds.When she slowed down, though, she was surprisingly thoughtful and smart. They hung out together because they were the newest kids, and in some ways he could relate to her, both of them having been the weird kids in their respective schools who daydreamed too much, read too many fantasy novels, and never stopped wishing that magic was real even before the doors had appeared. The kids whose parents constantly tried to make them give up their real selves, pretend to like things that they couldn’t force themselves to care about, to pretend to be normal and make friends with people who they could never relate to. He and Luz bonded through books, though their tastes were slightly different. He thought The Good Witch Azura was a little too cartoonish and over-the-top, and she thought China Mieville and Diane Duane were too wordy and wrapped up in long descriptions about things she thought were boring, though the vivid descriptions of strange landscapes and stranger powers were his favorite part. He’d never written fanfic before, but thought he might try it after he saw how enthusiastic Luz got about channeling her imagination into her writing. Wasn’t that an acceptable way for a weird daydreamer-type kid to deal with their feelings and thoughts? Put it all in writing in some locked diary or anonymous online journal and forget about it, leave it separate from the regular waking world of school and homework and extracurricular activities? Wasn’t that how kids like him and Luz were expected to deal with their dreams?

They talked about their respective worlds. From what the other kids said, most students couldn’t relate to each other that well, and one person’s ideal world was another person’s eternal punishment. Luz’s Boiling Isles sounded colorful and exciting but far too dangerous and unpredictable for him, and though he tried to describe the Garden as vividly as he could, she thought it sounded pretty but boring. He heard other kids talk in group sessions about Fairylands, Underworlds, sea realms full of mermaids and talking squid, more surreal places where you could run on rainbows and live in houses made of candy. They were interesting to hear about, but he didn’t think he’d ever want to visit any of them. None of them pulled at his heart. None of them were home. Of course he listened closely for any mention of anyone who found their door again and went back, and he’d heard other kids whispering about some serious recent upheavals involving a pair of mad scientist twins and a girl from a candy world who left and came back, or something like that, but nothing that seemed useful to him. Nothing that seemed like it might help him get back to the Garden, or get Luz back to the Boiling Isles, or Demon Realm, or whatever it was really called. 

One nice thing about being here, was that it was full of kids like him. Kids who hadn’t fit in with “normal people” or their parents’ expectations, who’d yearned in their hearts for something they hadn’t known even existed until a door appeared out of nowhere to the place they never knew they longed for. It didn’t surprise him that there were plenty of kids here who weren’t totally straight or gender-conforming. Just another trait that would make someone long for a world where they fit, where they could feel at home in their own bodies, where they could be a round peg in a round hole. The one really cute guy, Kade, had apparently been born a girl, but Vikram didn’t know if it was polite to bring that up at all, or if that meant he might be into boys. Plus he was still haunted by the memories of green glowing eyes and strong hands like twisting green branches, and lips that tasted of mint and wild strawberries. He’d known about his own orientation before he’d ever left Earth, but kept quiet about it when he didn’t think his family would be all that understanding, especially the older more conservative relatives. 

Luz talked a lot about her friends and foes in the Boiling Isles, but he couldn’t suppress a little eye roll when she talked about her confusing friendship with one particular girl who had once been a rival and the head “mean girl” at her witch school. Just how oblivious could Luz be? Even he could tell just from a brief description that this Amity Blight, whoever she was, was clearly into Luz, but whenever Luz talked about her world she was focused on her obsessions, about wanting to be a witch and wanting to save Eda, who’d been like a mother and witch mentor to her, and defeating some dark nemesis whose henchman (woman?) was Eda’s estranged sister, or something. 

Vikram hadn't had a lot of friends before he'd found his door. An introvert who loved sci-fi and fantasy and preferred to get lost in daydreams, still partially closeted, dealing with family pressures and all the rest of it. There had been no actual human beings in his world that he knew of. Maybe that was why that world had called him, because deep down, he just wasn't really suited to dealing with other human beings most of the time. The faerie-dryad-nature-spirit things he'd known in the Garden seemed to silently accept him without really questioning who he was or where he'd came from, and in the way they silently communed with themselves and with nature, they had seemed to think he had always belonged among them.

Unlike Luz, he had at least partially resigned himself to being stuck in this world, to being forced to pretend it was all a dream, to suck it up and start living in what his family and others had told him was "the real world." Dr. Rao was a friend of the family, and she at least had given him an example of someone who grew up and learned to deal with this world again. He thought that with time, he might manage it. He didn't really hope for anything else.

Until he met the other new kids.


End file.
